Polygamy and West’s ‘demographic decline’

In the so-called ‘civilized’ western world, the solutions to women’s abuse among their societies through sex-slaveryunder different names, family breakdown, nudity, pornography, adultery, etc. – are tagged on the ‘old-fashioned’ Islamic teachings, which are considered incompatible with modernity. One of such solutions, is polygamy (multiple wives), which is (was) allowed in every major religion. However, Islam put a limit on polygamy – that’s instead of having multiple mistresses in addition to the single wife, a Muslim is allowed to have upto four wives, but under certain conditions (restrictions), such as, a free consent of the first wife to have a second wife and equal rights of all the wives.

The female population in most of western countries is higher than the male population. In Russia, there are 11 million surplus women (fertility rate at 1.3%), in the US (4 million, fertility rate at 1.3%)), Britain (1.1 million, fertility rate at less than 2%), Germany (1.6 million, fertility rate at 1.4%), France (1.7 million, fertility rate at 2%), Canada (320,000, fertility rate at 1.5%) and so on. On top of that add over 30 million non-child-bearing gay and lesbian population in Europe, the US and Canada.

Contrary to that, female population in majority of 57 Muslim states is less than the male population.

Interestingly, the first western political leader to campaign for polygamy was no other than Duma Deputy Speaker and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia Vladimir Zhirinovsky. He actively crusaded for the legalization of polygamy in Russia, but failed. He honestly believed that with eleven million surplus women and the deepening demographic crisis in Russia, polygamy would go a long way to fight the demographic decline.

“Regardless of age, the first wife has the title of “senior” and the fourth – the “younger”. Other wives are referred to in order. According to the tradition, if the entire family lives together, the responsibility of the younger wife is the education of all children, regardless of who their biological mother is. The second and third wives have to take care of the household, and the eldest of all directs and assigns duties.

Proponents of legalized polygamy often point out that, according to a recent census, there are approximately 11 million more women than men in Russia, and every woman wants to get married. According to them, the women who are not able to get married still become second or third wives, only in European culture this status is called a “mistress.”

In July of 1999 Ruslan Aushev, then president of Ingushetia, allowed polygamy in the country by his decree. However, the decree was suspended by Boris Yeltsin as contrary to the Russian Family Code.

The president of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov also supports the idea of ​​polygamy. According to Ramzan Kadyrov, polygamy is better than leaving the family for a mistress. “This is better for a man than humiliating his wife by having a mistress, give jewelry and other gifts to prostitutes, and keeping his wife and children in need. If Allah permits polygamy, if the opportunity allows, you should provide equal rights for all wives,”- he said in an interview with Interfax.

What do women think of the issue of polygamy? Of course, there are women who are willing to share their husband with other women. There are cases where Russian ladies were not the only wives of Muslims husbands and even converted to Islam. They explained their choice by the fact that all Russian young men were drunks and there were no normal Russian men left, while polygamous marriage, even with an older man of a different confession, gave them hopes to experience a happy family life and raise children.

In general, the idea of ​​polygamy does not find support of over 60 percent of Russians. According to them, love is the matter of two people, and polygamy is not consistent with Russian mentality,” wrote Olga.